The sea was calm, a great blue sheet of glass that stretched as far as the eye could see. On the Isles, the sea had been green and rough, thick with brine. It could bring a cog down as easily as it could a rowboat, and drag men and ironborn alike down to the Drowned God's watery halls. Here we do not fear the Storm God's wrath. The sea of Slaver's Bay was calm and clear, and the Storm was far away. Only the Drowned God remains, thought Victarion. The Drowned God would lead him to victory, and the Red God to his dragons. And my wife. A wife as beautiful as the one he'd killed. More. The Crow's Eye was a fool to send me.
With no wind nor tide to carry them into shore the cogs of the iron fleet relied on their oars. They swung from deep in the sapphire waters to high in the warm Meereenese air, dripping seawater all the while. A blessing. The Iron Victory flew to battle on wooden wings.
Ahead of Victarion, the Noble Lady swayed and lurched as it ponderously made its way to the east. It was no true warship, nor even a fast merchant's cog, but it was the largest in the fleet and thus the best suited for striking the first blow. We must overwhelm them. As outnumbered as they were, the Lady could still hold thrice as many men as any one of the slaver galleys in the bay.
To the east rose Meereen, like a dragon hunched on the horizon. Colossal pyramids towered above the smoke-ridden slums of the city, shining in their splendour. Three of them, the greatest among them, were burning, Victarion saw. The two smaller pyramids were little more than husks, black smoke rising from cracks deep within them. At the apex of the third there burned a great bonfire. A beacon, Victarion decided. Or a call to war. The great pyramid would be visible to everyone in the city, from the lowest scum of the streets to the slavers in their manses.
Around the city rose stood the Yunkish camp; an infection spreading across the land. The Masters' slaves had erected tents and huge pavilions at Meereen's base, encircling the walls on three sides. Victarion saw the finest silk marquees and miserable huts of wool or raw horsehide, but little in between. It is not right that these Yunkish dogs hold slaves. A man might be served by thralls or a salt wife, so long as he paid the iron price, but they owned themselves as much as he himself. Only godless men and cravens would buy and sell a free man.
On the third side of the city there was the river. Moqorro had taught him its name, once, but Victarion could hardly remember it. The Shako… the Skahazdo… It didn't matter. A river was a river, whatever its name. When I am done it shall run red with blood. All who stood between him and this Daenerys would learn to their sorrow of Victarion Greyjoy's wrath. No man had made him to bandy words at Kingsmoots or fight his brother with poetry, but with an axe in his hand none could withstand him. Moqorro saw victory, and a glory that awaits me in the flames.
The Yunkish had blocked the river with two dozen of their own long, thin ships, better suited to sailing the seven seas than battle, arranged in a semi-circle around the river mouth. On their tall masts hung sails that bore a device strange to Victarion, a tear on a pale green field. A tear is no fit sigil for a warrior. Victarion had commanded that his own sails be hidden until they approached. When unveiled, they would show the golden kraken of his forebears; the master of the seas. Let the Yunkish weep and shriek when they saw it.
And above the ships… Victarion had never seen anything so monstrous, so beautiful, so powerful. Its wings beat through the air to the pounding of the drums, making it soar higher, ever higher. Even from a distance the iron captain could spy that spears and arrows were stuck deep into its scales, and yet the dragon took no notice. As he watched, one snapped thanks to the power of its wings, falling broken to the battlefield below. The dragon's heavy, armour-like scales were a deep jade, almost the same colour as the seas of his home. My dragon. It let out a roar like the scream of a thousand crows, and flames licked the clouds.
"Captain!" Burton Humble's cry tore his captain's attention away from the sky and drew it down to the sea. A galley had detached itself from the rest of the Yunkish fleet and was sailing towards them; its long oars rising and falling in rhythm. Pulled by slaves, Victarion knew. Their masters sail to their deaths.
Humble strode up towards him. "Captain, we board them or meet them?"
"Wait," was his only answer. Burton nodded and retreated, in order to see to the rigging. He was a good man, Victarion reflected, if not particularly bright. I have no need of bright men. Only leal men.
By now the ship was approaching smoothly; gliding across the glass sea towards them. It passed by the Noble Lady and its fellow cogs, taking care to steer as far away as possible from them. The Maid of Qarth, he read as it neared. The ship's captain hailed them in a speech flavoured with the queer tastes of the east as the Maid drew alongside them. "The great Wendello Qar Deeth greets you, noble Volantenes. I see that you bring supplies to water our parched mou—"
"We come not from Volantis," Victarion replied. His axe-hand itched.
"No? Then I fear you must about turn and make for another port. What brings you to brave the dangers of Meereen?"
"This." Victarion leapt over the gunwale, his axe already spinning from its holster on his back. But for a few scattered slave sailors, Wendello appeared to be alone on deck. The eloquently dressed slaver fell back as Victarion approached, his ridiculous feathered hat falling to the blood-stained planks. The ironman ended his misery with a sure stroke of his greataxe, and turned to face the slavemasters pouring up from the holds. He met them with a smile on his face and a muttered prayer to the God.
They were huge men, the slavers, and strong as well, but they wore little armour and carried only barbed whips. They were no use against his armour, as they would learn. The whips cracked at him from all sides at once, coiling around his arms and legs and neck, but he shrugged them off or broke them. The masters were defenceless without their whips; only men. An ironman is no ordinary man. Victarion's axe cleaved left and right, cleaving a bloody path through his enemies.
And then suddenly, there were none. Torn and ruined bodies lay about him, weeping blood. All around him the battle raged as his iron ships collided with the Yunkish slavers. Qartheen slavers. Milk men. They were no match for the ironborn of the Isles. As he watched, the Noble Lady ploughed through three of the galleys, making for the sandy shores of Meereen. His men were hidden no longer, it seemed; they had crowded on the decks to cheer and roar. We have no more need of ploys. More of his warriors were leaping from the Victory to the Maid, although there was no one left to fight. I shall have need of every ship when I take home my dragon wife, he thought. No one could take her from him now.
On land, too, a battle was raging. The city's great gates were slowly opening as hundreds of mounted men poured through Meereen's thick walls. The banner they bore was the dragon, black and red. Not half as magnificent as the ones I shall claim. Already the Yunkish were rising to meet them, their slave legions clanking into positions. Fodder, he decided.
The sound of a horn split the morning.
It went on and on and on, mingling with the dragon's screams high in the sky above them. It spoke of war, of battle and death, of the sweet steel song of his axe. Above all it promised fire and blood.
The horn stopped suddenly, leaving them in silence.
Victarion glanced upwards. The dragon still circled, higher and higher, outlined against the sky. "Captain!" He turned to see Wulf One Ear struggling his way across the deck. His left arm dripped blood. "There are more ships coming!"
Let them, he meant to say. Instead he swallowed his words as a ram pierced the Maid of Qarth, sending him spinning across the slick decks. Another galley, larger than the rest, had rammed them. Pale men in green and blue were flooding from the taller ship onto them. The Ardent Queen, he read, before the first man reached him. Victarion knocked him to the floor with a sure kick, and then slammed his axe into his Qartheen face. The man did not rise again. The iron captain span again, putting all his weight into the blow, and sent another soldier stumbling into the sea. A better death than he deserves.
A sudden blow to his head drew his gaze from the waves and back onto the decks. A monstrous man, half again as tall as Victarion stood in front of him, grunting stupidly. An axe twice as long as his own swing from his grasp, gouging deep marks in the wood of the decks. "Small man," he laughed. "Small man die." He hefted his butcher's cleaver above his head and sent it swinging down. He would not make the same mistake as he had with Serry. He jumped to the side, and was showered in splinters. His own greataxe flew at the giant's side, glancing of his armour. He is strong. The man roared again and sent a huge foot kicking towards him, and again he dodged. A true man does not run. The next time the axe came whistling towards him, he rose to meet it.
When the axes met, his own split in two.
Victarion stumbled backwards, his shield held in front if him. The giant laughed and started forwards. He caught another blow on his shield, and a second on his breastplate. By now his shield was hanging in ruins from his arms. The next blow would be his last. I shall feast forever.
The sound of a horn split the morning.
The giant roared and dropped his axe, falling backwards into the mast. The screams of all the men Victarion had ever sent to hell echoed through the air.
When it ended, the man sat weeping at the base of the mast, his huge hands clasped about his eyes. His dull eyes were shiny with tears. A coward. Victarion's burned hand closed about his neck, and lifted him high, tightening with every breath the giant could muster. There was a crack, and he dropped dead, to the floor.
By now the slavers were being beaten back by his ironmen, fleeing from their wrath and the horn. There was no sign of the green dragon, although he could still hear its roars through the sound of battle. Slowly, he picked his axe up again, and then realised that there was no one left to fight. Victory is mine. Why did he feel so empty?
Though he waited and waited, the horn did not sound for the third time. The Maid and the Victory had drifted into the bay, and were caught between the river and the morning tide. Absently, he jumped back from the sinking galley onto his own ship. His reavers ran to and fro, rigging masts and fixing the breaches in the hull. "Where is my horn?" he boomed, although no one seemed to take notice.
And then she took his hand, scared and afraid. The dusky woman led him belowdecks, stumbling and afraid.
In his cabin, the Boy and the Brute slouched head-down on the table, dead to the world. He almost thought them sleeping until he noticed the wisps of smoke rising from their corpses. They paid the iron price. Victarion turned to his woman. "Where is the Bastard's Bastard?" Wordlessly, she pointed behind him.
Moqorro sat on his bed, half concealed by the darkness. "Captain." His voice was smooth, as always, and the flames on his face seemed to writhe in the dancing shadows.
"Where is the Bastard's Bastard?" he repeated, slamming his axe into the table.
"The Bastard's Bastard jumped over board whilst you battled, captain. He feared R'hllor, and the flames. He was no more than a servant of the Other."
"Did these two blow the horn?"
"They did. I have seen their glory that greeted them in the sky in my flames."
"Has it worked?" My horn. My dragons.
"It has not." Moqorro paused. When he smiled, the white of his teeth shone through his mask. "But there is power in king's blood."
"What sort of power?"
"The power to build, and the power to burn. The power to move mountains or level them. The power to bind dragons to your will."
"These two died when they blew the horn."
"R'hllor favours you, my captain. I have seen the glory that awaits you in the flames."
It sat in the corner, blood-red and gold. The bands around it shone yellow, then red, then orange, and danced with firelight. My horn. It would not harm him. He was Victarion Greyjoy, the Reaver, the Iron Captain. Lesser men trembled before him, and soon would the Crow's Eye too. Unbidden, his legs carried him towards the horn. My dragons.
Victarion blew the horn for the third time.
Fire filled his lungs, deep and burning. There was pain, great pain, but he did not stop. Could not stop. Fire and blood. He blew until his lungs were empty, and some more, until he could no longer breathe nor think. Euron's face swam before him, twisted in laughter. He blew all the harder, and his brother vanished into the flames.
Finally, the iron saviour fell to his knees. He felt weak, so very weak. Flames curled in his chest, writhing, consuming. "Has… it worked?" The words were whispered; no more than a croak.
Moqorro knelt over him. "It has. There is power in king's blood."
"Why… the fire…"
"R'hllor awaits you, Victarion Greyjoy."
"No, I… You said…"
"Nothing is as glorious as our God's fiery halls."
Slowly, he rose to his feet. Nothing had ever hurt so much. "I shall… flay you, and…"
"That is not the death R'hllor has chosen for me." There were men screaming on the deck. "I die at fiery hands. And now my part is done."
The dragon's flame washed over them, and the darkness swallowed him up.
Next up: Melisandre